The 10 Minute Immigration Debate

The other day a friend pointed me towards two good Daily Kos diaries on immigration. There's a lot to like in both of them, but I want to pick out a couple of strands for discussion.

In the first Duke points out, correctly, that the US has had other high immigration periods, and indeed as you can see in the chart to the left, this isn't even the highest. He then goes on to say:

Historically there have always been a small minority of protectionists who've opposed immigration for xenophobic or racist reasons, but generally we as a people have accepted new immigrants with open arms and absorbed them into society. Yet, today we find this harder and harder to do. Many believe the new immigrants are putting undo pressures on our economy, creating stresses on a tight job market, and stretching already taxed social services and education systems.

Why today do we find it so hard to absorb these new immigrants? Why at a time in our history, when we have never been richer as a nation and more educated as a population, do we find these new immigrants putting such great stresses on our society? Perhaps we need to look at some of the changes that have taken place over the last twenty-five or so years to find the answer.

This sounds really good, but the problem with it is that in fact, in the past, there was a huge amount of discrimination against immigrants. The period in which immigrants were well accepted stopped when the majority of immigrants stopped coming from traditional sources (protestant Anglo-Saxons, Scots and Scots-Irish) and switched to Catholic groups like the non-Scots Irish, Italians, and so on. The 1850's, for example, saw the rise of the Nativist/Know-Nothing movement, which was vehemently anti-Irish immigration. In the 1880's the phrase "new immigrants" came into use to describe a new influx of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe, Russia and Asia -- immigrants who were mostly Catholic or Jewish. For decades there was a huge amount of anti-immigrant sentiment. In 1924 the US set quotas, then in 1927 it refined those quotas to specific numbers of immigrants from various countries. (It's also worth noting that Prohibition was an anti-immigrant measure in which the disapproving Protestant countryside tried to force its mores on the teeming Catholic immigrant masses in the cities.)

And, of course, in the late 30's, Jews trying to flee from Germany were turned away.

So anti-immigrant fervor isn't unknown, in fact it's been quite common in US history and has resulted in political movements and in practical legislation intended to slow down immigration. (Though the main cause of the collapse in immigration in the 30's was the Great Depression, which hit the US very hard and made it pointless to come to the US for a job.)

But when people talk about "immigration" what they really mean is "illegal immigration," so let's talk about that for a second.

The first thing to realize is that it appears that the majority of illegal immigration is from Mexico, and that when you add in Latin America you're up to about 80%. So when we're talking about illegal immigration, we're talking about illegal immigration from Mexico and Latin America.

The biggest single reason for increased illegal immigration from Mexico is probably that Mexican agriculture was smashed by NAFTA (Duke mentions this but throws it in with such a large laundry list that it gets buried), so you have a lot of Mexicans who need jobs. That's not all that's going on, but it's likely the largest part of it.

Why? Because US agriculture is massively subsidized (when you make something too cheap, you get overproduction) at levels non-industrialized countries can't compete with. We've forced third word countries to remove their tariff barriers and encouraged them to concentrate on cash crops that can't easily be grown in the US / Europe / Canada.

What's remarkable about immigration isn't that there's so much of it, but that there's so little of it. For example, Italy in the 19th century suffered an absolute population drain because there was so much emigration to the New World, and that is with a much smaller wage differential. We aren't seeing as much immigration yet as we should.

US trade policy, for some time been destroying small scale third world agriculture, leading to huge population dislocation in developing countries. Many third world (read, Latin American and Mexican) farmers who lost their livelihood then headed north to the US.

The US has an immigration problem, in short, because it's rich and other countries are poor. More than this it has an immigration problem because large numbers of people, primarily subsistence farmers, have lost their livelihood. If they were all poor but still had their farms and livelihood, they wouldn't need to head North. Increased immigration is thus a direct result of US, and indeed western trade and development policies as carried out by the IMF, the World Bank and various other alphabet soup agencies.

I did say there were two diaries and I'd like to touch on the second one, by Stephen. It's a good diary and I agree with most of it (his notes on insourcing, for example) but I have a couple of nits to pick, starting with this somewhat misleading statement about one of the causes of increased immigration:

The government has essentially turned its back on its own existing laws concerning employment of undocumented workers.

The first time in American history there were any penalties for hiring undocumented workers was when the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act was passed. Before then, nada. Sure, the workers could be nabbed, but the employers weren't fined. (One might note that this was probably based on "how should they know" in the pre "show your identity papers citizen" era.)

The other thing I'd like to comment on is Stephen's suggestion of how amnesty should be carried out, which I find unecessarily harsh:

Amnesty for all workers who are here as of the date a new immigration law is signed. Amnesty, followed by a requirement to demonstrate annually that the worker has been gainfully employed for 80% (or so) of the previous year, has paid all required taxes, and has committed no crimes beyond traffic violations. Pretty much the same thing a citizen is required to do.

An employment restriction on those who have received amnesty is harsh. What if you're a housewife? A kid? A student? What I would do is make it a "no welfare/no assistance rule". Also if you have work requirements, even at 80% you risk making workers the slaves of their employers. They can't leave because they'll be deported. It turns back into a guest worker program, where the workers are at the mercy of their employers. Protest bad treatment, get fired, and pretty soon you're deported.

Finally, on a personal note, when I was reading up on guest worker programs around the time of the failed immigration bill one of the things I noticed is that a big industry which uses guest workers is tree planting.

Well, I'm Canadian and I know a ton of 20-somethings (and a few 30-somethings) almost all white, mostly middle class, who spend a lot of time planting trees. Why? Because while it's lousy work and hard as all get out, you can make some pretty good money at it, it's outdoors and they'll take pretty much anyone (it's piecework, so there's no real risk). I don't believe American 20-somethings are fundamentally lazier than Canadians. The work can and will be done by Americans if the wage is high enough. And when I say "pretty good money" realize I'm not talking about good money as you or I would probably define it, I just mean "better than McDonalds".

Insourcing, the practice of bringing cheap workers into the country to do a job that can't be outsourced, is a choice. Societies don't have to do it. Instead, they can pay a couple bucks more an hour and employ their own citizens.

Of all the problems the US has, immigration including illegal immigration is, and I think both Stephen and Duke would agree, one of the less important ones. But if the US wants to reduce it illegal immigration, step one is to fix its own trade, agricultural and development policies. The best place to start would be to rewrite NAFTA to allow Mexico to protect and encourage its small farmers, so they don't need to go to America to make a living.

Ian Welsh November 14, 2007 - 10:40am

Ian Welsh's diary | printer friendly version |

( categories: USA: Domestic Issues | USA: Foreign Relations )

Issues

I think that there are several related but distinct issues involved that need to be debated separately instead of conflated and confused:

1. Border security. I don't think that there's too much argument over whether a country needs to exert control over its borders. The US had been quite lax about this prior to 9/11, compared with other countries. However, the post 9/11 changes were too ad hoc and poorly organized to meet the challenges, and they are creating dislocations and bottlenecks in places while also leaving other doors wide open.

2. Pricing power of labor. A lot of US workers are concerned not that their own jobs are being taken from them by illegals or even legal immigrants but that current policy favors business by damping down the pricing power of labor.

3. Fear. The GOP strategy of winning elections through fear is ratcheting up the concern about loose borders. Tancredo's campaign is voicing fears that many people have about this.

4. Cultural dissonance. Statistics show that the US is swiftly becoming a multicultural nation whereas previously it had been a multinational nation primarily of European heritage. Those of European heritage are not only upset that their traditional values are being "watered down" but that their political power is hanging in the balance. Much of the opposition to immigration is on the part of "angry white men."

5. Xenophobia. The US is isolated from the rest of world because of its rather insular geography. In spite of their immigrant heritage most Americans don't know the language of their ancestors and have largely cut ties with their former homelands. Moreover, their assumption of American "exceptionalism" has set them apart from other cultures.

6. Fairness. While a lot of opposition to immigration stems from conservatives wanting to preserve "traditional" America and "the rule of law," many progressives also oppose the current immigration policy as being unfair. They see the influx of illegal immigrants who come chiefly from Latin America as being a consequence of the government's "wink-wink" policy favoring business that creates migrant workers by day and illegal immigrants by night. This policy creates a double standard and works against qualified applicants trying to follow the rules and enter the work force legally, .

The US needs an immigration policy that will:

(1) adequately protect borders without inhibiting business, trade, tourism, education and other important facets of national and international life,

(2) protect American workers' pricing power while meeting the genuine needs of business to grow and prosper, and

(3) and be fair in opening opportunity internationally to the most highly qualified.

As far as cultural dissonance and xenophobia go, some people are just going to have to get over it. America will be more diverse, hence stronger, as a multicultural nation, as its history already goes to show.

tjfxh November 14, 2007 - 9:56am

Somebody

from out in Arizona can tell you about the stresses in social services; a few years ago Tucson's medical community was having a very difficult time taking care of illegals. Hospitals were going broke.

There are social services here today that were not here during the 1880s. Rich as we are, we don't appear to be rich enough to deliver all these benefits to which immigrants seem entitled, once they get here. I think that is a primary reason why people want some handle on immigration in the Southwest.

I know you want a Canadian Health care system here, but, so far, Americans don't. I certainly don't. If I need my knee fixed, I need it fixed and I can't go south of the the border to get it done once you take over my medical care, because there is not much south of here other than chaos.

I can't even go to Cuba like this guy

http://www.pr.com/press-release/54883

Maybe you'll change our foreign policy so I can.

Here's some more folks waiting up your way.

http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/reprint/174/9/1247.pdf

http://mauberly.blogspot.com/

mauberly November 14, 2007 - 10:29am

You mean...

...American politicians don't.

I believe Ian has said he writes about the Canadian system because it's the one he knows, not because it's the best.

Gordon November 14, 2007 - 11:51am

Some species of Universal health care,

maybe; if it pays for the plane ticket to Cuba. Canadian-I'd be surprised.

http://mauberly.blogspot.com/

mauberly November 14, 2007 - 1:02pm

Social services

I think that healthcare and education really a separate issue in themselves and figure into the immigration debate under other issues. I know a lot of people cite is as a major reason for opposing (illegal) immigration, but it folds into other issues. Healthcare and education for migrant workers by day and illegal immigrants by night is really an externality for many US industries, particularly agriculture.

Business hires these workers at a premium in their favor and externalizes (socializes) their health care and the education of their families. Such externals are a major factor in undermining the pricing power of labor. Businesses have to pay legal workers more in order to fund these things through normal channels instead of through the very expensive back door that illegals use. If you want workers, then you have to for their care when they are sick, and if you don't want gangs in the streets, you have to educate their kids and keep them out of trouble, or society will be saddled with a very annoying underclass of troublesome serfs. Same with driver's licensing and insurance. It's your problem if one of these folks happens to hit your vehicle and is unlicensed and uninsured. The business that hires them could care less about it and bears no responsibility for bringing them to a neighborhood near you.

So the public can expect to pay either way. If the present policy of socializing the expense continues, then taxes will have to take up the slack. If the door to migrants is closed or narrowed, then prices of things like food will rise as the price of labor will rise.

The fundamental principle of economics is, "There is no free lunch."

tjfxh November 14, 2007 - 11:57am

I think

health care and schooling are central issues to those who have to deal with illegals on a regular basis. That is because largely we pay for these things and not the businesses who employ them, as you say.

If you want to fold this into a broader business policy, that is fine with me; one way or other we don't seem to be able to afford the breadth of service that they require.

If you want to tax business to do it, run on that platform; see how many votes you get. It is a thorny mess. If you want to put up a wall, you have another set of problems.

Illegal Immigration is a huge, daunting, management problem,at the very least.

But in the 1880s, people got off the boat and largely disappeared; there was no public welfare that I know of. Because there is today, all these problems emerge.

If they came across from Mexico illegally nobody noticed them except in B westerns.

http://mauberly.blogspot.com/

mauberly November 14, 2007 - 12:54pm

You can't afford

the health care costs many Americans need as the uninsured numbers and the bankruptcy numbers (50% of which are caused by health problems) indicate.

Health care is a bigger issue than just around immigration.

Ian Welsh November 14, 2007 - 2:53pm

True:

"Health care is a bigger issue than just around immigration."

but around immigration it is huge. To purport to solve illegal immigrant health care here with a single payer system won't work. I don't mean to say that you said this, but it is buried back there somewhere in the positions which minimize the problems at the southwest border.

this:

"the bankruptcy numbers (50% of which are caused by health problems)"

seems high; I thought we were the penultimate non-saving consumer, not doddering patient. Could be, I suppose.

http://mauberly.blogspot.com/

mauberly November 14, 2007 - 11:51pm

The US model of healthcare

The US model of healthcare has been it's being funded chiefly by employers rather than the government. Now business is trying to change that model by shifting the burden to individuals, cutting their benefits while keeping their wages stagnant. Business keeps wages stagnant essentially three ways. First, through the "comparative advantage" that labor arbitrage (offshoring) provides. Secondly, hiring low wage workers (immigrants) in this country. Thirdly, weakening the bargaining power of organized labor. This enable them to stiff their regular wage employees. As a result, not only are wages and salaries stagnant expect for the upper third of families, but also benefits are being cut back and "responsibility" shifted to workers. At the same time, there is intense opposition from the Right to government's picking up the difference. Along with this is the push on the part of business and finance to privatize even successful programs like Medicare and SS, which would result in huge windfalls to them at the expense of the middle and lower class.

What this amounts to for business is externalizing burdensome medical expenses, and immigration is a key factor in the attempt to pull this off this massive shift in responsibility. This appears to be a healthcare problem but in reality (economics) it is directly related to the effort of business to undermine the pricing power of labor in the US in order to increase profit and build up up assets on the part of the ownership class.

Business doesn't want to pay immigrants even a subsistence wage, which shifts the burden away from them. At the same time, they don't want to lose their low wage labor, so they lobby against tighter immigration controls and the strict enforcement of existing immigration and labor laws.

Until we approach this problem at its root, there immigration is going to remain a wedge issue and the problem will continue as US business continues to expand its share of the national and international pie by avoiding its social responsibilities in creating and maintaining a strong and vibrant worker class. In the end their actions are shortsighted and will kill the goose that lays the golden egg, as US competitiveness falters, the overall economy sputters, and social discontent rises.

tjfxh November 15, 2007 - 10:27am

Excellent summation, IMHO [eom]

_{Turn back to the Constitution - and READ it.}

Rick November 15, 2007 - 11:50am

This is pretty good, Rick

I think, however, you approach the problem tactically, not at its root. Otherwise, you'll be forever arguing about the root.

If you toughen up on immigration a bit, you take some pressure off the healthcare and other systems that serve the immigrant. You do put pressure on business with that. It will drive labor costs up, for more Americans will have to do the immigrant's work. Health care benefits may accrue to the worker again.

At that point you wait to see what happens. Where problems arise you try to fix them; but you have to protect the American working family and you have to create more of them. So start some place, where the voter is focussed, i.e., on the border issues.

You may end up going to some kind of national health care just to get the worker insured again. The point of this is to save the middle class. You have start driving wedges in various places, irrespective of freemarket rant. Then you see what falls out and you drive some more wedges again.

Don't worry about the root cause. You'll never get agreement on that.

http://mauberly.blogspot.com/

mauberly November 15, 2007 - 12:34pm

It ain't so much what lunch costs

as it is that your government spends your lunch money on a vastly overpriced bag of toy soldiers instead.

"The best-informed man is not necessarily the wisest. Indeed there is a danger that precisely in the multiplicity of his knowledge he will lose sight of what is essential."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Escher Sketch November 14, 2007 - 1:13pm

Medical System

I have lived in many countries UK, South Africa, Belgium, Canada, US and others. And this long post is a combination of experience, opinion, and sharp comments.

In the UK, the cost seeing a doctor was part of National Insurance Contributions. The UK National health System (NHS) is essentially a large government run health organization. Most Doctors, Nurses and other health workers are employed by the NHS. Prescription then cost about 50p. My daughter was born in Queen Charlotte’s, at no extra cost to me -- Old facilities, long waiting times. Acute conditions seen quickly, chronic ones - wait in line. No ICU treatment for the elderly. The state made a decision not to spend excessive amount of limited resources on people close to end-of-life.

South Africa was similar to the US. Private insurance, caps mandated by the government (from which doctor's could & did opt out).

Belgium was similar to Canada. The State provided a single payer system, employees & employers contributed to a fund, doctors were self employed and billed the state insurance system. Better facilities than the UK. Shorter waiting times.

When I arrived in the US, California, I had health care from Kaiser Permamente. It was very similar to the UK, with the addition that the facilities were new, and the waiting times somewhat shorter. The copay in 1980 was $1.00, and the medical insurance paid by my employer, about $150.00/month for a family of 4.

I'm now again with Kaiser. The copay is now $30.00. My insurance, without dental is $713.00/month.

Best health care system? All health care systems ration health care, one way or another. The US & South Africa by ability to pay or profitability of person; the UK, Belgium & Canada by acute, chronic, etc, and also by age.

Which is better? - My personal measure is average longevity. This does not put the US at the top of the list as it includes societal, lifestyle and environmental factors. Or, more bluntly, if you sit on you ass in an air conditioned home, drive an air conditioned car everywhere, and sit in an air conditioned office, eat processed fats and refined carbohydrates, then you will die sooner. I personally suspect people in New York, and similar cities, are more healthy than those in the Sun Belt, because such cities requires one to walk.

Which is more cost effective? UK NHS. The UK treats its whole population, from cradle-to-grave for the same percentage of GDP as Medicare in the US. Similar longevity for both countries.

Which is more honest? Not the US. To me, it's both dishonest and stupid to put an elderly person in an ICU and suck the money out of their bank balance with all those tubes in the last 6 months of life. In addition, while Doctors', and Hospitals', may practice by the Hypocritical Oath (slight intended), the “do no harm” stops at the medical facilities. Their billing departments harm continually.

The health industry in the US is exploiting "fear of loss" in those who have health insurance to keep the gravy train going. This is self defeating, because of the downward spiral of wages in the US, which will not abate due to Global Labor competition This will result in a private "health care system for the rich" in the US, very similar to the health care systems that existed in Europe before WW II, and addressed the wave of social (socialist) programs inacted Europe wide after WW II.

As, I believe Churchill said, "The United States will always choose the right solution, after exhaustively considering all others".

Synoia November 14, 2007 - 12:34pm

bottom line

the statistics all back up that the US pays more and have worse outcomes. And waiting times have dropped significantly in Canada over the last few years.

The majority of Americans believed that Iraq was behind 9/11. You guys have been stewed in amazing amounts of anti-universal healthcare propaganda. Nonetheless plenty of polls show that most Americans want universal care, just not "Canadian" style.

That's fine, while the Canadian system does about the same or better on all metrics except for optional surgery than the US, it isn't the best system in the world. It's just better than the US's. Adopt a different one.

But you pay 50% more and you get less. 50% of all bankruptcies are caused by health problems in the US, people are chained to their jobs and tens of millions are uninsured.

Ian Welsh November 14, 2007 - 2:49pm

Irony abounds

http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2007/11/05/bisc1105.htm

http://mauberly.blogspot.com/

mauberly November 16, 2007 - 10:18am

These graphs

are too small for me to read. Could you make it possible to enlarge them, or link to the original source?

Charles Harris November 14, 2007 - 11:40am

Fixed

you should be able to click on all images to see larger ones now.

Ian Welsh November 14, 2007 - 2:56pm

And sorry to nitpick

Ian, your work is fantastic. Puts a lot of concepts I'm not always comfortable with into a format that is very approachable.

Charles Harris November 14, 2007 - 11:44am

Thanks for the kind

words and for letting me know about readability. I have a large screen, so what may be readable for me may not be for others. It's good for me to know so I can correct.

Ian Welsh November 14, 2007 - 2:57pm

Lots of people go south of the border for medical care

From San Diego, many people go south to Mexico for prescriptions, surgery, especially plastic surgery, health spas and nursing home care, etc.

The lack of single payer care is driving U.S. citizens out of the country just to find medical care. This is a ridiculous situation.

I have two fine Hispanic gentlemen building me a patio right now. The contractor I hired, who I at least expected to do some of the work, has not gotten his hands dirty at all.

The problem isn't the immigrants -- the problem is US, and our policies, thank you very much.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

Charles Darwin

darwin November 14, 2007 - 1:13pm

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The 10 Minute Immigration Debate

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